FL13 - Page 90

In Search of Monster Carp
a three-day period I caught a 41 one
day, a 45 the next day and then a 53lb
common. They were all commons,
and Glum’s face was a picture every
time; I mean, the words that were
coming out of his mouth just got
worse every time – it was so funny. I
think the biggest he caught was
about 16lb or something, bless him,
but he got his own back on me. It was
funny, but that was my first 50lb’er
out of Raduta, which was my third
country that I’d caught a 50 from, and
a 50lb common too. I’d never caught
one of those before, so that was a bit
special in itself.
Cassien was again featuring heavily in the fishing I was doing. Again
the rules had changed down there;
they were always bringing rules in to
try and stop carp anglers doing something or other. Cassien is a lovely
place, and loads of tourists go down
there during the day. Of course they
get to come down to this nice little
beach with their picnic hamper, and
there’s some smelly old carp angler
bivvied up there, who’s been there for
about three weeks, and there are flies
buzzing round the bivvy. So I suppose
they thought, we can’t really have
that, so they stopped night fishing in
the summer between June and September, and you could only fish during the day. Well of course the first
thing everyone thought was, what’s
the point of driving all that way when
you can’t even bivvy up and stay on
there at night? So everyone stopped
going there, and I went down with
Joan, and the place was empty.
The thing was, because there was
no bait going in, the fish were looking
for bait, and it was like a different lake
to the Cassien that I’d known over the
last few years. All of a sudden, instead
of waiting a month for half a dozen
fish, you could catch up to ten fish in
a day, and they were everywhere. We
would go in a different swim every
day, and whatever swim we went
into, there were fish there, and we
were catching them – it was brilliant.
We were the only ones there, and it
was the nearest thing to going back
to the old days when I first started
fishing there. That was fantastic in
itself, but probably the winter trip that
(Top) A New Year’s brace of Cassien
carp.
(Above) Playing a fish hooked from
the margins.
(Left) Back on home ground at
Rodney Meadow.
90 FREE LINE

FL13 - Page 90

In Search of Monster Carp
a three-day period I caught a 41 one
day, a 45 the next day and then a 53lb
common. They were all commons,
and Glum’s face was a picture every
time; I mean, the words that were
coming out of his mouth just got
worse every time – it was so funny. I
think the biggest he caught was
about 16lb or something, bless him,
but he got his own back on me. It was
funny, but that was my first 50lb’er
out of Raduta, which was my third
country that I’d caught a 50 from, and
a 50lb common too. I’d never caught
one of those before, so that was a bit
special in itself.
Cassien was again featuring heavily in the fishing I was doing. Again
the rules had changed down there;
they were always bringing rules in to
try and stop carp anglers doing something or other. Cassien is a lovely
place, and loads of tourists go down
there during the day. Of course they
get to come down to this nice little
beach with their picnic hamper, and
there’s some smelly old carp angler
bivvied up there, who’s been there for
about three weeks, and there are flies
buzzing round the bivvy. So I suppose
they thought, we can’t really have
that, so they stopped night fishing in
the summer between June and September, and you could only fish during the day. Well of course the first
thing everyone thought was, what’s
the point of driving all that way when
you can’t even bivvy up and stay on
there at night? So everyone stopped
going there, and I went down with
Joan, and the place was empty.
The thing was, because there was
no bait going in, the fish were looking
for bait, and it was like a different lake
to the Cassien that I’d known over the
last few years. All of a sudden, instead
of waiting a month for half a dozen
fish, you could catch up to ten fish in
a day, and they were everywhere. We
would go in a different swim every
day, and whatever swim we went
into, there were fish there, and we
were catching them – it was brilliant.
We were the only ones there, and it
was the nearest thing to going back
to the old days when I first started
fishing there. That was fantastic in
itself, but probably the winter trip that
(Top) A New Year’s brace of Cassien
carp.
(Above) Playing a fish hooked from
the margins.
(Left) Back on home ground at
Rodney Meadow.
90 FREE LINE